28 April 2017
The Airbus-supported Perlan 2 pressurised glider has reached its highest altitude to date – 30,615ft – during 2017’s first series of tests.
The Airbus Perlan Mission II is an initiative to fly a glider without an engine to the edge of space to collect data on high-altitude flight, weather and climate change.
It reached the altitude flying from its US headquarters at the Minden-Tahoe Airport in Nevada. This month, May, the Perlan team will return to Argentina for its second year of flight operations in Patagonia.
“This past year our team gained invaluable insight and experience from flying the glider in and around the Andes Mountains,” said Ed Warnock, CEO of the project. “Using that information, we’ve made improvements to the aircraft that will help us have even greater success this year, first in Nevada and later in Argentina, if the wave and weather conditions are optimal.”
To reach the altitudes that will enable the aircraft to conduct its research, the team is searching for elusive “stratospheric mountain waves,” which only occur a few places on earth – such as Patagonia – and a few weeks out of the year.
This year’s improvements include:
